


this don't even feel like falling

by donnatellah



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: First Kiss, Getting Together, Graduation, Jack knew last, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-26
Updated: 2016-02-26
Packaged: 2018-05-23 08:48:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6111289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/donnatellah/pseuds/donnatellah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The thing about Eric Bittle is that he’s so Bitty. Like, all the time. Bitty is warm apple pie and the morning sun streaming through the kitchen windows: open, and pure, and earnest, and just—himself.</p><p>Jack is not like that. Jack has never been like that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	this don't even feel like falling

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this while listening to Beyonce’s “Halo” on repeat. Thanks a lot, Ngozi. Title from said song.
> 
> This is my first fic for the fandom; I hope it's worthy of these characters. Unedited and written in a fit of teary passion to finish before today's update, so excuse any mistakes.
> 
> Glad to have experienced this week's Genuine Hell with you all. See you in the afterlife later today.

The thing about Eric Bittle is that he’s so _Bitty_. Like, all the time. Bitty is warm apple pie and the morning sun streaming through the kitchen windows: open, and pure, and earnest, and just—himself.

Jack is not like that. Jack has never been like that.

Not at age five, in Montreal, when paparazzi would sneak into his backyard to snap photographs of his parents holding hands on the patio.

Not at age twelve, on the rink and _good_ but knowing that goodness was always and forever connected to his father’s.

Not at age sixteen, with Parse, making a name for himself, breaking all the records, finally feeling like maybe he belonged here.

Not at age eighteen, after that pipe dream burst.

And not at Samwell, not even with all the freedom Samwell has offered: Shitty, captainship, photography, the ice, Bitty—

Well. Jack has never felt like that.

 

 

Graduation comes, like it was always going to. Graduation means Shitty’s sharp new haircut, which he sometimes sees in the mirror and bemoans, clutching his face with his hands and yelling, _“The flow!_ ” Graduation means his mom babbling in joy about being back on her old stomping grounds, showing him all the places she used to study, walk, party, as if he hasn’t been living here for the past four years. Graduation means Bitty knocking on his door multiple times the night before, asking, “Is this tie okay? How about this one?” Jack just sits back on his bed, watching Bitty knot the different ties with deft, quick fingers, thinking about tomorrow.

The day of, Jack decides he hates photography. He can’t count the number of pictures he takes—it seems like every member of his class wants to get a goodbye photo, even the people he barely remembers. The picture he takes with Lardo is probably the worst. Neither of them are particularly sentimental people, but when Shitty takes the camera and gestures for them to pose, Lardo’s arm around his waist actually hurts from the force of her hug.

She nudges his side with her elbow. (Shitty is still snapping away—he likes the fake candids. Jack has always preferred the real candids, but he lets Shitty do his thing.) Lardo’s eyeliner is a little smudged, and her smile is wobbly.

“Don’t tell anyone,” she says faux-severely, “but I’m really gonna miss you, Zimmermann.”

“I couldn’t have asked for a better team manager,” he tells her, and she smiles wider then, like that was the best thing he could have said.

 

 

After the ceremony, after all the pictures, Bitty is standing near his parents, intently Instagramming, as Bitty does. When Jack approaches him, he puts away his phone immediately, brown eyes focused right on Jack. They make small talk about going home; Jack hates small talk, but he’s pretty good at it with Bitty.

Then Bitty hugs him, easy like it always is for Bitty, one hand fisted in Jack’s gown, his hair brushing against Jack’s neck. It feels like any other time he’s hugged Bitty in the past year, and not like that at all. Bitty’s voice is whispery-low when he says goodbye, lips moving against the fabric of Jack’s shirt. And Jack pulls away.

 

 

When his dad whips out the old Uncle Wayne quote, something he’s heard over and over again from his uncle and his father and sometimes his mother, mockingly—Jack gets it.

“Go say goodbye,” his father says, pointedly, sagely.

“Oh,” Jack says. And goes.

 

 

Look, he’s not like Bitty. This isn’t _easy_ for him. It never was, not when he was a kid, not when he was—whatever—with Parse, not at all during college. And obviously he’s not saying it’s been easy for Bitty either, of course not, but the fact of the matter is Bitty _himself_ is easier—Bitty knows himself, knows who he is, has always known. Jack remembers the defiant blush on Bitty’s cheeks the first time he mentioned having a crush on some guy in his English class, and what’s memorable is not the redness of his cheeks (well, that too) but the surety of his voice, always so certain.

But Bitty didn’t sound like that earlier today, by the Pond, saying goodbye.

He sounded small.

Jack never wants to hear Bitty’s voice sound like that.

Maybe that’s the point.

 

 

Jack Zimmermann is a professional athlete. He runs from Lake Quad back to the Haus faster than he’s ever run before, and in dress shoes. He’s not thinking about anything except for the pounding in his chest and the ticking of time passing, the watch on his wrist and the minutes between him and the Haus, him and the future, him and Bitty.

 

 

When he jumps up the steps to the front door, leaping like he’s in a damn movie, he trips. Rights himself. Opens the door with some modicum of composure. He feels hot, sweaty, certain, and terrified.

“Shit,” he hears from the kitchen. “Hey, I thought you—”

When he rounds the corner to the kitchen, Bitty stops talking. Abruptly, like he’s been magically silenced. His mouth hangs open a little. He has flour all over his hands, all over his shirt, and dough spread out haphazardly on the counter behind him. He closes his mouth.

Jack realizes he is staring, and then realizes he is literally panting, and then freaks out about both at the same time.

Bitty brushes his hair back with his fingers, getting flour on the edge of his face. “Jack,” he says, voice shaky, “what are you…” He trails off.

Walking further into the room, Jack sees the redness of Bitty’s eyes, the tightness of his cheeks, the bow tie he had painstakingly chosen now hanging off one shoulder, his collar crumpled.

“Are you baking?” Jack says, uncomprehending. “I thought you had to go.”

“Oh—there was just some dough left from the biscuits yesterday so I…” Bitty claps his hands together, flour billowing, and clears his throat. “Did you forget something?”

“Yes,” Jack says. “I did.”

 

 

Here’s the thing about Jack Zimmermann: he is always, and has always been, scared out of his goddamn mind.

Of everything. He used to cry every night at the monsters under his bed. Don’t tell the press.

If Bitty is kitchen sunshine, just after dawn, bright and full of potential, Jack is midnight in winter, alone in his bedroom, the incandescent yellow light of the hallway visible underneath the door: just close enough to see and far enough to terrify.

He has been afraid to get up from the bed, to turn on the lights, to see what’s really there in the darkness. But now he opens the door to the hallway. Lets the light in.

 

 

 “I just,” Jack says, “well, I wanted—I didn’t want you to go without—um, what I’m trying to say is, I was thinking, and I just, maybe—”

Okay, so he’s still not great at this.

He stops talking, instead reaching falteringly to touch the flour on Bitty’s browbone. His fingers are shaky and Bitty’s skin is warm, so warm.

  

 

“Oh,” Bitty says.

And kisses him.

 

 

It’s a gasp of a kiss, Bitty’s lips pressing gently to his, soft but sure, like Bitty always is, like something he can count on. One of Bitty’s hands reaches for his chest, tentatively curling around the Pond-blue tie he’d been fiddling with earlier. Jack’s heartbeat is worryingly fast. Bitty’s kiss breaks off, his lips curling into a smile right beside Jack’s mouth, a smile he presses to Jack’s jaw, once, carefully.

“Yeah,” Jack says, inanely.

“How long?” Bitty asks.

Jack pulls back. One of his hands has found its way to Bitty’s waist, trying not to clutch too desperately. The other is still on the curve of Bitty’s face, rubbing away the flour above his eyebrow.

“Uh,” Jack says, “like, fifteen minutes.”

“You are an idiot,” Bitty says, matter of factly.

Jack pulls him in again.

 

 

The thing about Jack Zimmerman is that he is terrified, a lot of the time, and anxious most of the time he’s not terrified.

But it is early afternoon and Bitty’s floury hands are staining his sport coat white and Bitty’s mouth tastes like strawberry jam and, and, and, for once: Jack feels like himself.

Open. Free.

Ready for tomorrow.

**Author's Note:**

> cry with me at donnatellah.tumblr.com
> 
> #gotyourback


End file.
